


The Dragon Syndrome

by PlumeBluue



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Dragonlords, First english fic, I don't know this is just silly, M/M, Merthur - Freeform, Prince Arthur wears a silver crown, Slash, prince Arthur is kidnapped, remix of the stockholm syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumeBluue/pseuds/PlumeBluue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Merlin is a dragon, allergic to gold, not even that green and weird looking in his human form, and where he is not even attracted to the correct gender and kidnaps the crown prince of Camelot instead of a random princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dragon Syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> This OS is inspired by tumblr user Faerill's post that talked about a gay dragon having to explain to his parents why he was only kidnapping princes.  
> Huge thanks to my beloved beta Shuu and to fuckyeahmusearmy who kindly gave me advices on the (stupid) plot <3

Merlin has never been a great dragon – and don’t let him start about the reasons why he was an even worse dragon lord. If only he had been born a simple dragon – no family whose honour he had to preserve, no pressure on his skinny shoulders that didn’t even have a decent shade of green -, his failures wouldn’t have been noticed. At least, no one could have compared all of his doings to the great achievements all his relatives had ever done. 

He had no coordination when it came to flying; how many scars had he gotten from the countless collisions against unsuspected mountain peaks? He couldn’t breathe fire further than three meters – because it fucking burned, Merlin had told his sister way too many times. He was even allergic to gold; when he had to keep watch on the familial Treasure Hall, he kept on sneezing ashes. And now that he had his own creepy castle to tend, he couldn’t come to terms with the idea that a dragon’s keep had to be filled with more than three gold coins in its treasure hall. 

Merlin’s only skills weren’t even acknowledged in the dragon’s world: he was only good at human magic, and no one liked human magic, not even humans. Dragons were naturally familiar with this art but feared it, for sorcerers were a strange and unpredictable race, and every dragon knew that sorcery had to be used with caution. But Merlin liked – loved sorcery. He liked how he could twist the direction of the wind, how he could bring stones to life and shape earth into the forms he wanted, how sparks of light would be cast from a single glow in his eyes and how he didn’t have to fear water since it obeyed his every commands. 

Merlin didn’t even have a decent human form. It was a truth universally acknowledged that every dragon was unbelievably handsome when it came to take human form, in order to keep civilised relations with human kind (who were they kidding? All that dragons wanted to do with humans was steal their princes and princesses in order to live the most epic love story one could ever imagine, burn all of their resources or kill the commoners and the peasants that had the misfortune to appear before a dragon’s sight). Merlin was absurdly tall and ridiculously skinny, had ears the size of a fist – not really, but Freya and Edwin were quite fond of that comparison – and lanky limbs. Freya was the most beautiful girl in her human form the young dragon had ever known, and Edwin was so handsome that Merlin found himself quite often uneasy towards the incestuous attraction he sometimes felt for his cousin. 

Worse, Merlin wasn’t even able to be attracted to the correct gender of royals. Merlin was obsessed with princes. He was obsessed with the solid crowns they would usually wear (way more concrete and visible than those silly thin things princesses would wear on top of their delicate heads), and he was more particularly obsessed with solid silver crowns. And obsessed with the manly heads that would wear it, and he loved the idea of tightening his claws around a strong chest and feeling the struggling muscles moving between his paws. 

So the day that Merlin flew over the perfect solid silver crown of a prince granted with a fabulous golden hair (because even though Merlin was allergic to gold, he was irremediably attracted to this colour, just like any other dragon would), looked for the perfect opportunity and kidnapped the crown prince of Camelot. 

***

“You kidnapped the crown prince of Camelot.” Freya said incredulously. “You kidnapped a prince.”  
“I did.” Merlin agreed sheepishly.  
“But you’re a male!”  
“I know.”  
“You can’t!”  
“I know!”

Freya glared at him as they clung to the wall of the tower. She then hunched her head over the sleeping figure resting in a magnificent bed. She sighed, then removed her head from the chamber’s window that would keep the prince prisoner, closed it carefully with her paws and turned a tired look at Merlin. 

“I suppose I would have kidnapped him, too.”  
“See.” Merlin said bitterly. “Please don’t tell dad. Or mum. Mum would cry. A lot. That would take days for anyone to clean it up.”  
“Merlin, you… you are no ordinary dragon – you are a dragon lord, for god’s sake! You can’t kidnap a prince! You have to kidnap a princess!”  
“But I don’t like princesses!”  
“That’s absurd!”  
“It’s not!”

Freya’s nostrils quivered, and with a roll of her eyes, she promised that she would keep Merlin’s idiocy secret. She flew away from her brother’s keep. She wouldn’t tell anyone, Merlin tried to convince himself. Merlin wasn’t even going to keep Arthur that long, anyway. He would just enjoy his presence and his handsome looks – because Arthur was incredibly handsome, and noisy, and a prat, whose only threats were to mention his hypothetic father’s wrath -, for a couple of weeks or so, and then he would let him go.  
He glanced at the sleeping prince through the window and let a sad smile draw itself on his lips. There was no surprise that everyone thought so badly of him. He was a mess of a dragon – of a dragon lord. He was the shame of his family. No one could ever know that he had taken a prince into his care. (Well, now was no time for such dark thoughts!)

Merlin wiggled out the bricks he had dig his claws into and flew back to the main hall where he changed into his human form in order to make a correct second impression. Then, he went to the kitchen to cook a proper breakfast for two (eggs and bacon). 

The problem was that Arthur wasn’t that hungry after all (even though he had spent a whole day screaming in his room refusing every single comestible offer of peace that Merlin gave to him through the little trap on his door), because he threw every possible object in Merlin’s face as soon as he appeared in the entrance of the room and the dragon had no other choice than stop the projectiles with his magic. 

“Wait-No! No, stop! Wait! I have breakfast!”  
“You. Can. Stick. Your. Fucking. Breakfast. Up. Your. Arse!” Arthur replied, punctuating each one of his words with a new attack. 

He suddenly stopped then, realising that his attacks were useless against the dragon. 

“That’s cheating!” he shouted. 

Merlin raised his vacant hand in excuse. 

“Only self defence,” the dragon replied.  
“Oh, and was I given any opportunity of self defence when you bloody kidnapped me?”  
“Those are the rules, the human loses against the dragon, the dragon gives no chance to his prey and the prey waits for the ransom in order to be free.”  
“That’s not fair.” the prince retorted with a great display or maturity.  
“Those are the rules.” 

Merlin put back the furniture back in its original place and walked to the table where he put the two dishes full of a smelly omelette in evidence. Even Arthur’s anger couldn’t hide the hunger showing up in his face and the noisy rumbling of his stomach. 

“Please, help yourself.” Merlin said cordially, even though his heart was beating wildly in his chest and the excitation of this new encounter that went against all of the rules – no matter what he’d said before – made his ears ring in anticipation.  
“I want my sword back.” Arthur stated imperiously.  
“I’m sorry but I can’t: your sword is mine, now.”  
“Oh, come on! It’s made of silver! You have no need for it!”  
“I’m allergic to gold.”

Merlin sat in the chair facing the place he had reserved for Arthur and started to eat with his hands. He waited, and finally Arthur sat down, looking suspiciously at the omelette as if it were poisoned. 

“There’s no cutlery. Are you afraid that I might stab you with it?”  
“No.” Merlin replied, not looking up from his plate, even though he was dying to do so; to lose himself into Arthur’s blue gaze and lose all efficiency in his role of ravisher.  
“Why, then?”  
“I have no cutlery.”  
“What?”  
“Dragons can’t buy or accept from any other dragon any kind of metal, in any form. That’s the rule.”  
“You can only get it from a ransom?”  
“Or steal it from a prisoner.”  
“And you don’t have it yet?”  
“I only left my parent’s keep a year ago.”  
Arthur blinked at him, then said, “You truly are a shitty dragon.”

Merlin shrugged and kept on eating. Arthur said something that looked like “And he expects me to eat like a vulgar peasant” but the silence that followed spoke eloquently of the quality of Merlin’s omelette. 

“Will you ask my father for a ransom?”  
“I was going to fly to Camelot this afternoon.” Merlin lied. “I’ll ask for all the silver that can be found in his kingdom, and then I will free you.”

Merlin wasn’t going to fly to Camelot, not exactly. He was going to ask Freya to do this job for him – because he had never told their parents that Freya had once kidnapped a simple peasant she had fallen in love with one day that she was traveling north of the land, and because Freya owed him this one – in order to save his reputation, at least for this one time. He just hoped that he wouldn’t fall in love with Arthur too quickly. Dragons were hopeless romantics, and this was a fact very well known all around the world. 

“You are not in love with me, are you?” Arthur asked then as if he was reading in his mind.  
Merlin blushed. “Not yet.” he said, avoiding Arthur’s gaze. “I’m planning on getting rid of you as soon as possible in order to avoid any complication of that kind. It is not well suited for a male dragon to kidnap a prince, you know.”  
“I know.” Arthur sighed. “Of every possible dragon traveling the sky, I had to be kidnapped by the most hopeless one. How lucky am I.”  
“I know.” Merlin said, smiling despite himself. “I know.”

***

Freya didn’t accept his request and almost burned the tip of his nose in order to make a point. Merlin flew away and went back sheepishly in his keep where he contemplated sadly the mess that he had made of his life. He couldn’t go and ask the king of Camelot to give him his silver; there were too many things at stake. At noon, Arthur and him ate Merlin’s stew in silence, and the leftovers in the evening. They played chess afterwards and every pawn they would lose would allow the opponent to ask a question. 

“How old are you?” Arthur asked.  
“Seventy years old.” Merlin replied.“But that’s the equivalent for twenty years old in human years.”  
And when Arthur lost a pawn, “Do all of your knights have swords made of silver?”  
“Christ, no! Only my father and I have weapons of such quality.”  
“How many?”  
“That would be another question, dragon.” Arthur said, because Arthur kept calling him dragon instead of Merlin, and Merlin was getting more and more irritated by that.  
“Why did you let me keep my crown?” Arthur asked when Merlin had lost another pawn.  
“It suits you.” Merlin answered with a slight blush on his cheeks. “Your move.” He added when he moved his knight.

Arthur had looked at him intently as if he were trying to decipher Merlin’s true intentions in relation to the game or a completely different matter (and Merlin couldn’t help but wish for the latter option). 

Finally, when there were no more pawns left and the question game evolved around the mass murder of higher instance pieces, and just before Merlin’s move that would give him a chess mat, Arthur asked, “Did you see my father today? Did you ask him for your gold… your silver?”  
“Couldn’t.” Merlin answered. “Something came up.”

The look that Arthur gave him at this moment left no doubt whether he knew the real reasons behind this delay or not. 

***

Freya scratched him this time and Merlin went back in a pretty bad shape made Arthur gasp when he saw the damages made to his face (hopefully, he didn’t see the size of his wound in his dragon form). 

“Let me guess – something came up?”  
“You could say so.” Merlin grunted as Arthur was delicately cleaning the wound with a wet cloth. 

He was sitting on the table, next to the meal he had brought up to Arthur’s tower. Merlin kept his eyes down, way too confused, maybe even too flustered to be able to behave properly if he had to make eye contact; the proximity was all that his hopeless romantic mind could take, and he was not only flushing but also trembling under Arthur’s concerned and intense stare.  
Apparently, there must have been some truth behind the legend that said bonds were magically created between a dragon and his captive in no time. That must be it, Merlin thought, even though the thought was sort of disappointing, as if feelings were in some kind of way a cheat, a pale imitation of what he had always dreamed of. 

“Why don’t you just go ask for the silver yourself instead of asking some random dragoness to go for you?” Arthur asked at some point.

Merlin wasn’t surprised that Arthur had found out the real story behind the delay of his encounter with the king.

“My kind would hear about it.”  
“Would it be that bad?”  
“You have no idea.”

Arthur put the cloth down on the table and searched for Merlin’s gaze. The dragon accepted the eye contact with exasperation.

“Why do you care so much of what others will say? It’s not that bad if you prefer the company of princes. Princesses are boring, I know that for a fact.”  
“You don’t get it.” Merlin retorted. “I am no random dragon. I am a dragon lord: my acts have repercussions on my family’s reputation.”

Arthur blinked. 

“You’re a dragon lord.”  
“I am indeed.”  
“You can’t be.”  
“Why is that so, if you please?”  
“You can’t be!” Arthur stated with an eloquent wave of his hands. “Look at you! You’re all gangly and clumsy and allergic to gold, for god’s sake! And you’re not even that green in your dragon form…”  
“I know that!” Merlin exclaimed, getting back to his feet and turning back to his chair and his now cold meal. “I know that, and every dragon knows that! I am a pathetic excuse for a dragon! I can’t even fly in a straight line, I can’t breath fire half as far as a baby dragon could and my only skills are human magic and on top of that, I have a preference for princes even though I am male! How do you think that my parents will take the news? Do you think that they would be happy to hear it? I am the disgrace of my family. They don’t need to know about this. I don’t need them to know about this.”  
“So you really are a dragon lord.” Arthur repeated. He hadn’t move from his previous spot and was casting an incredulous look on his ravisher. “Is your father the Great Dragon?”  
“Nah.” Merlin sighed. “That’s my uncle. Kilgarrah’s my father’s brother, Balinor.”  
“Balinor.” Arthur parroted knowingly. “I see. Well, that is indeed problematic.”  
“Tell me about it.”  
“You really are a pathetic excuse for a dragon.” 

Merlin glared at him and Arthur laughed while sitting in his chair. 

“I’m glad you kidnapped me though.” Arthur added as he was grabbing a piece of meat with his fingers. “Of all the dragons, it better be you. At least, the food is acceptable, and it doesn’t look like you will kill me in the end and your ransom won’t ruin my kingdom.”  
“Sure it won’t.” Merlin conceded, a thin smile on the corner of his lips. 

When he glanced up at Arthur, he saw him smiling too, and before he returned his look back at his plate, the prince winked at him. 

Well, there were definitely going to be complications. 

***

A week later, Freya showed up at Merlin’s keep. 

“Why the frowning face?” Merlin asked in a brief display of wit and Freya glared at him.  
“It is silver that you want, then?”  
“Yes. All the silver of the kingdom. They will probably laugh – just let them. Don’t burn them. I really don’t want to declare a war.”  
“You will pay me back for all the troubles.” Freya grumbled as she was flying away with a grace that Merlin had always envied her. 

Merlin wanted to tell her that he didn’t have anything to pay her back, but she was already disappearing in the horizon. 

***

Merlin was showing Arthur the propriety in a great wave of compassion for his confinement when Freya showed up in all the magnificence of her human form. Arthur gaped at her. She was still naked. 

“Uther refused to pay the ransom.” Freya said while shamelessly ogling at Arthur. “He says that Arthur is perfectly capable of escaping such a lame dragon.”  
“How rude of him.” Merlin commented.  
“He is not wrong, though.” Arthur replied. “If it weren’t for your impressive skills in sorcery, I would be far from here right now.”  
“Too bad.”  
“Isn’t it?”

Merlin and Arthur giggled while Freya cast a disgusted – and incredulous - look at them. 

“What are you going to do, Merlin?” Freya asked impatiently.  
“Can you go back and mention how powerful you are?”  
“He wouldn’t believe her.”  
“That would look as if I was bluffing. And that would be ridiculous.”

Merlin closed his eyes, looking for a proper solution but couldn’t find any and looked desperately at his sister, waiting for her to come up with an idea. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” she retorted. “This is your mess to clean up. Come visit me when you find a proper solution.” 

And then she flew away. 

***

They were lying on the carpet of Arthur’s tower after two long hours of chess and questions games. Arthur had his eyes closed in order to get rid of the relentlessly balancing world induced by an exaggerated amount of wine they had drank earlier. Merlin had taken this chance to stare shamelessly at his prince’s angelic figure. He raised one finger to rest it lightly against Arthur’s cheek. Arthur’s blue eyes opened immediately and stared back at him. 

Merlin might have gotten a little bit drunk too. 

“I suppose the only way I could save the situation is to set you free.” Merlin whispered, even though there was no reason for him to whisper.  
“But you don’t want to.” Arthur whispered back.  
“No, I don’t.”  
“You said that you weren’t in love with me a week ago.”  
“I did.”  
“Are you in love with me, now?” Arthur asked, and Merlin swallowed, his throat dry. “You said that you weren’t in love with me, not yet. Are you… Are you, now?”

Merlin didn’t answer straight away. 

“This… This is not natural though.”  
Arthur frowned. “Because I am not a princess?”  
“No! … Yes, but that’s not what I mean. This is the dynamics, you know? The captive and the dragon – the Dragon Syndrome, as we like to call it. Quickly and irremediably attracted to each other. This is ancient magic, ancient laws of the universe. And it doesn’t seem… it doesn’t seem natural, there is no questioning, no longing, only too shortly built certainty, and I wonder if this is true, if this is sincere – and I think of how weak I am to fall so easily for my nature’s tricks-“

He stopped, then, because Arthur not only was still looking at him with intensity, but he was also leaning over him, weight resting on strong arms and soon, Arthur was cupping his face in his free hand. They shared a breath then two, eyes locked on each other’s lips and Arthur’s pressed lightly against Merlin’s for a second. Two seconds. There was no wine left in their blood, only cold certainty and hot expectations, silent longing and drumming hearts. Merlin gently licked at Arthur’s lower lip, asking for permission and the next second, there were tongues dancing who belonged to whomever the gods chose, desperate sighs and warm whispers of truths, vows and exciting ideas. 

“If this is written in the laws of the universe,” Arthur breathed at one point when Merlin was running a hand in his captive’s golden hair with no risk of sneezing ashes and the other all over the strong lines of Arthur’s chest, and that Arthur was rocking back against Merlin’s quivering thighs, “then I don’t want to be an outlaw.”

Well, Merlin was left no choice but to agree with him. 

***

The princess of Camelot showed up in the morning at Arthur’s window. She had escalated thoroughly the whole length of the tower and was welcolmed with the sight of his brother wrapped in his kidnapper’s arms. 

“Well, that was unexpected.” she said for a greeting. 

They both woke up to the brave princess glaring at them from the end of the bed. 

Merlin sneezed ashes in response. 

“Take off your jewellery!” Arthur shouted and princess Morgana did, throwing the golden rings and earrings through the window. 

Merlin left the room in order to avoid any kind of irremediable mess and went back a moment later only to find the siblings glaring at each other. 

“I am not going back,” Arthur threatened, “until father gives Merlin all the silver he wants and that we give him the title of Court Dragon.”  
“You’re not serious.” Morgana and Merlin said.  
“I am deadly serious.” Arthur replied. 

So Morgana left the way she came. 

Arthur turned back to Merlin who was standing gobsmacked in the doorway, looking at Arthur as if he had just solved all of his problems. 

Which he just did. 

“You do realise what this means.” Merlin said. “You just found a solution for all the wars that have or could have happened between humans and dragons.”  
“My father is old and sick.” Arthur’s voice was bitter and sad. “He’s planning on giving me the reins of the kingdom for a long time now. He will see the advantages of such an arrangement. And when I am king, I am going to finally put an end on all the attacks my people have lead on your kind and I am going to ask you to put an end to the murders of my people.”

“This is going to be a hell of a revolution.” Merlin whispered, reaching for Arthur's arms. 

“Is it true that dragons – male dragons – can give birth?”

Merlin laughed. 

“It is quite rare; males don’t usually go after princes. And we can only give birth in our dragon form, and dragon lords are the only ones who can. ”  
“How convenient.” Arthur said, hiding his face in Merlin’s shoulder where he pressed a kiss against his lover’s warm skin.  
“How convenient indeed.” Merlin replied, smiling against Arthur’s golden hair.


End file.
